How do I use factories from FactoryBot in rails console

Question

I am using rails console in the development environment and I want to use factories. How can I get access to them?

I have tried require "FactoryBot" which returns

1.9.3p393 :301 > require "FactoryBot"
LoadError: cannot load such file -- FactoryBot

you'd probably want to start with a require 'factory_girl' rather than requiring the FactoryGirl constant. — Rob Dawson, Sep 15 '15 at 01:17
adjusting for current times - you can start `rails c` then do a `require 'factory_bot'` — RudyOnRails, Feb 15 '19 at 00:11

Alexander Popov · Answer 1 · 2020-04-22T09:42:54.743

239

I do this the following way:

Start the rails console in test environment in sandbox mode.
```
rails console -e test --sandbox
```

You need this for two reasons:

Any changes you do are rolled back.
If you already have some seed data it might happen that the factories will start the serialization of attributes from 1, but these records might already exist.

Then in the console:

Require FactoryBot (was called FactoryGirl):
```
require 'factory_bot'
```
Load the factory definitions:
```
FactoryBot.find_definitions
```
Include the FactoryBot methods to avoid prefixing all calls to FB with FactoryBot (create instead of FactoryBot.create):
```
include FactoryBot::Syntax::Methods
```

P.S. For fabrication gem you can load the definitions in the rails console with:

Fabrication.manager.load_definitions

Also require 'faker' if you use it.

edited Apr 22 '20 at 09:42

answered May 10 '14 at 12:04

Alexander Popov

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Should that last line be `require 'ffaker'`? – Dihedral Jun 08 '15 at 16:03
It depends on which gem you use - faker or ffaker, but I agree that lately ffaker is more widely used. – Alexander Popov Jun 09 '15 at 06:28
I've faced undefined method `fixture_file_upload` issue, that was caused by absence of `ActionDispatch::TestProcess` module, so you might consider including it also – divideByZero Jul 14 '17 at 09:24
1

If you're restarting the console a lot, here's a one-liner: `require "factory_bot_rails"; include FactoryBot::Syntax::Methods; require 'ffaker'` – Mirror318 Feb 19 '18 at 05:30
1

Rails 5.1.6, just with either `rails console test` or `rails console test --sandbox` will work. If you don't like using the `FactoryBot` prefix, do include Syntax Methods – Francisco Quintero May 23 '19 at 19:59
2

For Rails 6.0 run the console like this: `rails c -e test --sandbox` – David Morales Jun 13 '19 at 16:04
As far as I can tell, it's not necessary to run it in the test env. Otherwise the instructions are good. – Camilo Payan Jun 28 '22 at 14:13

score 44 · Accepted Answer · edited Jan 29 '18 at 09:18

44

To solve this problem ensure that the factory bot gem is specifed in your Gemfile similar to this

group :development, :test do
  gem 'factory_bot_rails'
end

Then bundle install.

This should make FactoryBot class available in the development console.

Hope this helps.

edited Jan 29 '18 at 09:18

Chiperific

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answered Aug 13 '13 at 03:00

muttonlamb

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Adding FactoryGirl in gemfile like this instead of `gem 'factory_girl_rails', :require => false` will throw errors for anyone trying to set up development environment from scratch, beware. – Epigene Aug 26 '15 at 08:43
5

This answer works, but the accepted answer should be `rails console test`, it will allow you to create a console in the test environment so you don't need to update your Gemfile to use a test package in the development environment – Dylan Pierce Mar 29 '17 at 15:28

Robin Daugherty · Answer 3 · 2019-11-12T23:05:20.007

26

You need to require 'factory_bot_rails', which is the actual gem that's being used by Rails. That gem will include the Factory Bot library, making FactoryBot available.

You can either do this, or update your Gemfile to require it at startup as in muttonlamb's answer.

edited Nov 12 '19 at 23:05

answered Jan 07 '14 at 20:42

Robin Daugherty

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Because I was using Faker in my factories, I also had to run `require 'faker'`. – albertski Apr 02 '20 at 13:02

score 11 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 08 '21 at 21:31

11

If you want to have it available each time you start the console, you can add this piece of code to the top of your config/environments/development.rb:

require 'factory_bot_rails'
require 'faker' # if you're also using faker gem
require 'rails/console/helpers'
Rails::ConsoleMethods.prepend(FactoryBot::Syntax::Methods)

Now you can use the built-in helpers right after starting the console, for example:

company = create(:company)

answered Feb 08 '21 at 21:31

Jacka

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For Rails 6, this answer is close–the previous answers didn't work. I only needed to run `Rails::ConsoleMethods.prepend(FactoryBot::Syntax::Methods)` (and not the previous three `require`s) to get it to work (I don't use `faker`). – Ed Ruder Apr 12 '21 at 00:28
2

@EdRuder if you have those gems in `development` group in Gemfile, then you're right - they should be required automatically. – Jacka Apr 13 '21 at 07:58

How do I use factories from FactoryBot in rails console

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